Story Highlights

Long before Saturday night, the New York Yankees were well aware that Mark Teixeira's right wrist was not 100%. So Teixeira's exit was not necessarily a physical breaking point, more of a personal breaking point. Teixeira finally acknowledged that he was not able to hit well enough to help the team.

"I don't know that it's been right since he's been here, honestly," hitting coach Kevin Long said of Teixeira, who returned to New York for further tests on the wrist. "A big part of his routine is doing tee work, and he hasn't been able to do that. It definitely affects him from the left side, not the right side. The right side is fine, but the left-handed part where you kind of go like that (bending at the wrist) in the last minute, he's not able to execute.

"At this point, he's going to play and do what he thinks he's capable of doing to help the team. When he feels like that part of it doesn't get him far enough and doesn't get him to where he's able to help the team, he's going to say something. He did today. … He had a couple pitches where he was like, 'I should crush those balls, but I'm not able to take my A-swing.' He said at that point he should probably come out of the game and reevaluate what's happening."

It was just a few days ago that Teixeira said he felt good and thought his at-bats were getting better, but his switch-hitting numbers told a worrisome story: Teixeira was hitting .278 from the right side – the swing that primarily uses his uninjured left wrist – but only .086 as a left-handed hitter. Long acknowledged that, from the left side, Teixeira has been a "shell of who he is."

"It's the first time he's came to us really and said (anything)," manager Joe Girardi said. "I think he just doesn't feel that he has the whip that he normal has hitting left handed."

Girardi even evoked an unsettling name Saturday night: Jose Bautista. The Blue Jays slugger suffered a similar - although not exact - injury to Teixeira last year. After rehabbing the injury, he played in just one full game before succumbing to season-ending surgery 10 days later.

"I just know what Bautista went through last year where he was able to rehab and come back, and then he took that one swing and he went back, really, to square one," Girardi said. "I don't think Tex is there. I don't think he's back to when he hurt it in March, but he'll see Dr. Ahmad and they'll evaluate it."

It was striking that Teixeira has been playing this long without being able to go through his normal pregame tee work. Long said Teixeira tried to do left-handed tee work a few times, "but that's when he feels it the most."

"These guys are used to their routines, and he's been doing the same thing for years," Long said. "When he's not able to execute that and swing the bat the way he's capable of, it's going to affect him. It's going to affect him mentally, it's going to affect him physically. … Tex is tough. He'll play through a lot. At this point, it's better that he gets it checked out and kind of see if there's a better solution.

" I don't know, maybe there's not. Maybe this is where he's at with it. That's up to the doctors' evaluations, so we'll see what they say and move forward from there."

The line of the night might have come from Lyle Overbay, and he was technically misspeaking when he said it.